


High Tables

by karanguni



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2280687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tseng stops long enough to find a half-abandoned bottle of champagne, and two flutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Tables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OwMyFace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwMyFace/gifts).



  
  
Reno walks into Headquarters at 1800 sharp, and is wearing a tie. 'That time of the year again, eh, boss?' he tells Tseng before falling into a chair and ruining the unusually clean lines of his suit.  
  
Tseng inclines his head to the side in silent, amused acknowledgement. Outside, snow is beginning to fall in thick, fat flakes over Midgar's ragged Plateline. The view from Administrative Research's small but not insignificant principality high in the 40s of the Shinra Building is quiet and peaceful. Whether because of superstition or aversion to the cold, very few breaches in security happen on the eve of the new year. 'Looking forward to the party tonight?' he asks Reno, eying him.  
  
'The food's always great,' Reno drawls, smile plastered across his face.  
  
On the other end of the room, Rude snorts. 'It's the scraps afterwards that you're really interested in.'  
  
'What can I say?' Reno asks, shrugging expansively. 'Us plebeians feed off of the scraps of titans. And President Shinra sure knows how to throw a damned good party.'  
  
Tseng makes a noncommittal noise that could be either agreement or disagreement, and pulls up a roster on his screen. 'I take it you'd prefer first shift, then.' It's a well-worn tradition, by this point, to let his men run a little bit more wild at the end of the year. Tseng knows something about the physics of pressure, and the importance of release.  
  
Reno salutes, two-fingered. 'Nothing quite like drinking while watching the upper echelons implode, boss.'  


* * *

  
  
They do a security walkthrough of the upstairs ballroom at 1615. The space has been split in half; one into a dining area and the other into a lounge space for music and post-dinner drinks.  
  
'Swank as ever,' Reno observes, tugging on thick white tablecloths that probably cost more than his own sheets. The tables are already laid. In true feudal fashion, there's a high table for the Presidents and the executives. Tseng leaves his men to do the usual area sweeps. Rude is in the control room downstairs flipping through the security cameras. Elena checks for and removes any unaccounted for items. Reno, with undisguised pleasure, bugs the high table; the recordings are one of President Shinra's favourite takeaways from the year-end soiree.  
  
They flow through the room with the ease of long practice.  
  
'We take all this effort to protect them,' Elena muses as they collective do a check of the exits. 'And yet nobody ever taste-tests the food and drink.'  
  
'That's because gorging themselves to death would be poetic justice,' Reno says.  


* * *

  
  
The guests always arrive first, because it doesn't do to have the cream of Shinra sitting in front of an empty empire of tables. Reno and Rude, on first shift, spend most of their time cross-checking name lists with camera feeds. Together, they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Plate's true upper crust.  
  
'Banker,' Reno yawns, looking at the next few names on the list. 'Pimp. Electricity trader. Daughter of coal magnate before the whole Kalm scheme.'  
  
Rude offers, deadpan, 'No normal people, huh?'  
  
'It's Midgar, partner. There's no such thing as normal people - just rich people, and the people they step on.'  


* * *

  
  
  
Tseng always stands personal guard to the President for most of the evening. It's not a duty the others envy. It is, however, in its own way the act of placing the Director of Administrative Research at the table with all the other executives. Tseng is where he is supposed to be. It is just an additional amusement that nobody tends to notice him, the living, listening statue at the President's back.  
  
This year, as plate after plate of expensive and too-rich food gets brought to the table, Tseng watches Rufus Shinra. More accurately, he watches Rufus Shinra watch Reeve Tuesti. The young Vice-President, for a night relieved of his duties of cooling his heels in Junon, is in fine political form. Snubbed by his father to the second seat on the right - Heidegger has the privilege of the seat of honour this year - Rufus has taken to speaking with his assigned seat mate with the air of a man on the hunt.  
  
Tseng doesn't blame him. Reeve Tuesti is known, to those who can afford the knowing, to be an intelligent man (a high compliment), but also a _smart_ man (a much more valuable skill). There are elements of Urban Development that Tseng himself has been keeping a solid eye out for. There's the slow, almost unnoticeable trickle of tiny amounts of funding that seem to go somewhere but nowhere at the same time; the labyrinth of UD laboratories that could and probably do host any number of side projects. If Tseng had a free hand, he would investigate Tuesti much more closely. As it is, the President lets him run on, fooled perhaps by the normalness of his title and appearance and demeanour.  
  
Rufus, to his credit, seems not at all taken in. Exile in Junon has given him a nose of blood in the water, and he bends his head with Reeve, talking in low tones. They're getting along. Better than anyone Tseng has seen Rufus get along with in years of standing guard over him.  
  
Tseng wonders if Rufus knows about his father's habit of bugging dinner tables. Another insult to add to the injury of being related to the man, he supposes. The son has not yet eclipsed the father, though not for lack of trying.  
  
The President has more practice than Rufus, though. Within a half hour of their talking together, a bottle of champagne gets sent trundling down the table. 'With my compliments!' guffaws the old man, lifting his glass in toast. 'Oh,' he adds as the server pops the cork and moves to pour. 'None for my son. He's still rather young, you see.'  
  
The President lifts his glass in toast. Rufus, with a look of silent rage, raises his own glass of water. Reeve, neither quelled nor exuberant, lifts the flute the server puts in his hand. The President drinks, they drink, then there come commands for Reeve's flute to be filled again, and so on, until Reeve is swaying slightly in his seat.  


* * *

  
  
The dinner evolves - or devolves - or mutates into a party as it gets moved into the second half of the split ballroom. There are plenty of lounge chairs and low tables to go with the lounging and low light. Reeve knows better than to try to make an escape, Tseng sees, and instead positions himself on the far end of the circle of seating from Rufus.  
  
It is, however, too late. The President is patting him on the back and pouring him drinks that Reeve cannot refuse. Rufus watches the scene unfold with hooded eyes.  
  
This goes on for an hour or two, in the usual style. Tseng allows himself to marginally relax his posture as Scarlet and Palmer sit together and snigger and make calls on a PHS that result in a delivery of attractive women - and some men, for Scarlet - to the table. Reeve finds himself with a lapful of muscle and cleavage, and hasn't the mental strength to push the invading present away.  
  
This is the straw that breaks the Vice President's back. He stands in disgust, makes a few correct-sounding farewells, and then stalks away. Tseng flips open his PHS, calls Elena in to take over for him, and then trails after Rufus.  
  
Scraps from high tables indeed.  
  


* * *

  
  
Tseng stops long enough to find a half-abandoned bottle of champagne, and two flutes.  


* * *

  
  
  
He trails Rufus down to the elevators, where the Vice President is waiting impatiently for one of the cabs to arrive. When it does, he makes no objection to Tseng stepping in with him. Tseng hits the button for the garage level. Rufus raises an eyebrow. 'I know where all the cameras are, Rufus, and where they aren't,' Tseng says simply, and he subsides.  
  
They head out into the parking bays, where there is line after line of expensive vehicle after expensive vehicle. Tseng picks a very particular corner that's out of the way, and sets the two flutes on top of the hood of a million-gil car. He pours, and then hands one over to Rufus.  
  
Rufus throws it back with the determination of someone who wants to be drunk very quickly. 'I expected,' he says out of the blue, 'better from Tuesti. Than to just give in to my father, and to drink and to whore with the rest of them.'  
  
'What would you rather he have done?' Tseng asks, sipping with much more self-control. 'At the very least, Reeve keeps his embarrassing behaviour limited to the year-end party, where it's a free pass in any case. I can name you more than a few executives whom your father has tamed with the drinking and whoring much more effectively.' Almost gently, Tseng adds, 'Tuesti's a Shinra executive. I presume you two were getting along because you appreciated his wit. Reeve knows exactly how to stay under the radar with your father. He's choosing to do that. Can you blame him?'  
  
Rufus stares at his glass. 'When being noticed gets you exiled and then humiliated for years? No.' He taps the flute with a nail, and the crystal sings. 'Why are you giving me this?'  
  
'You saw your father use alcohol as a weapon tonight,' Tseng shrugs. 'It can also be an analgesic.' He raises his glass. 'Happy new year, Rufus.'  
  
Rufus is wary but clever and will, one day, one year, be great. He touches the lip of his glass to Tseng's. 'Happy new year.'  



End file.
